All posts by No Brand Con

The No Brand Comic wants you!

Do you like drawing, writing, or making comics? Do you love No Brand Con? Well, have we got a deal for you! No Brand Con is looking for entries for this year’s No Brand Comic! If you are interested in getting your original comics, No Brand fanart, or (heaven forbid) No Brand fanfiction out there to be seen by hundreds of con-goers, free of charge, submit your work to art@nobrandcon.org! However, we have a few rules:

1. Please avoid copyrighted material. Stick to your own characters, or if you want, the No Brand Con mascots. We love fanart almost as much as we love cheesecake.
2. Black-and-white, 5.5″ x 8.5″ pages only. That’s the way they’ll be printed.
3. Length can vary, but please, don’t make it a novel. The upper limit is eight pages for comics, 400 words for prose.
4. As we are a family friendly convention, we ask that you also make your comics family friendly.
The deadline is March 31, 2013, let’s get moving!

Tabletop Gaming. Love it? Submit your event Today!

NewsBot 6000 here with a little news out of our Tabletop Gaming Department!

First off, there’s an incredibly easy way to submit your own game or event; just submit an email to tabletop@nobrandcon.org with the following information:

Your Name(s):
Name of and Author(s) of the game/module:
The Game System (eg. Pathfinder, GURPS, etc):
Description of Game/Module:
Desired Number of Players:
Desired Player Level:
Desired Time (eg. morning Saturday, late night Friday, etc):
Contact Information:

Game submissions will be accepted through January 31, 2013. Attendees will be able to register to attend games up until the convention, at our Warhorn Event Page At  http://warhorn.net/no-brand-con-2013/

Again, we love having your games or events affect the convention, and user submitted games are the best way to see your vision change our programming.  Did I mention we love games?

That’s all for today’s news, I’ve been NewsBot 6000, and that’s news to me!

First Wave of Announcements!

Hi Guys!

NewsBot 6000 Here with the news!

After a crazy Geek.Kon tailspin, we’re back with our first wave of announcements.  If you haven’t already followed us on facebook, be sure to soon, after all, friendship is magic.

First thing’s first!  Registration, right now, is only $25 for the entire weekend!  At a discount of $10, I’d say this is the best time if you want to save a few bucks for the vendor room!  And don’t forget!  If you see us at another convention in the Ambassador Alley, not only will you get a discount, you might get a hug.  Aw.

Moving on!

AMV Contest Registratation is up and we’d love to get your submissions. Follow this link to learn how to submit one today! (AMV Submissions or email AMV@nobrandcon.org) We on staff love congoer submitted content….

Speaking of which!  Panel Submissions are up too!  Got an idea for a panel?  Well, my fine NBC’er just e-mail panels@nobrandcon.org for more information on how to submit OR follow this handy link to our panels page for more detail!

Anyway, we hope you all have enjoyed your No Brand Con lull, more than halfway home already, where’s the time gone? Hope you all have a wonderful October and remember, we’ll be at DaishoCon in November, but we’ll make a more formal announcement about that in a couple of weeks, be sure to check back for more information!

See you soon!

-NewsBot6000

Artist Alley Registration is now open!

You can now download our Artist Alley application, fill it out, and mail it in to us:

Sorry, Artist Alley Registration is now closed.

Tables are reserved on a first come, first serve basis and the Artist Alley tends to fill up very quickly, so don’t wait too long in filling it out and mailing it in to us. Also, remember the following requirements if you haven’t done so already from our update from last week. Being preregistered for the convention is a requirement in order to reserve a table, so make sure you do so before we receive your application in the mail!

Today is also the last day you’ll have to get in on our $25 early-bird preregistartion rate! You can preregister after today as well, but the rate will move up to $30 starting Sunday, October 2nd! Be sure to take advantage of the cheaper rate if you can!

Grandfather Vendor packets will also be mailed out this weekend. Once you’ve received yours, you can begin reserving your tables online!

And as always, you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter for convention updates.

Early-Bird Preregistration closes tomorrow on Saturday, October 1st!

Just a reminder you only have two more days to take advantage of our $25 early-bird preregistration rate! Your mail-in registration form must be post-marked by Saturday, October 1 or you must have registered online by midnight on Sunday, October 2nd to get in on this discounted rate! Starting Sunday, October 2 preregistration will move up to our standard $30 rate which will run until April 6, 2012 when preregistration for No Brand Con XI closes, so be sure to take advantage of this while you can!

Also, just a reminder that the application form for Artist Alley will go up tomorrow on Saturday, October 1st! Once the form is up, you can download it, fill it out, and send it in to us! Be sure you check the previous update below this one for details as there are a couple of specific requirements that need to be met before your reservation becomes final. Our Artist Alley tends to fill up very quickly, so don’t wait too long to fill out and mail your application in.

And as always, you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter for convention updates.

Artist Alley and Grandfather Vendor Registration will open October 1st

We wanted to give all our prospective Artist Alley and Grandfather Vendors a heads up that we will be opening up registration for both next Saturday, October 1st.

We will post our 2012 Artist Alley registration form online in an update next Saturday, and Artist Alley vendors will be able to download and print it out, fill it out, and mail it in to us. Tables for the Artist Alley will be reserved on a first come, first serve basis in the order we receive applications in the mail. Each Artist/Studio is only allowed to reserve one table. The following is required:

1. Any prospective Artist/Studio who would like to reserve a table in our 2012 Artist Alley MUST be preregistered for the 2012 convention. If we receive your application in the mail and check our registration system and see you have not preregistered, we will move onto the next application we’ve received and you will NOT receive an e-mail confirmation. We are letting all prospective Artists/Studios know a week in advance of when we’ll be opening up the Artist Alley so they can take advantage of our $25 early-bird registration rate before it moves up to $30 starting October 2, 2011. Table pricing for Artist’s Alley can be found on our Vendors page.

2. Once we receive your application and verify you have preregistered in our registration system, we will send you a confirmation e-mail stating you have a space reserved. You can request a specific spot or table and we will do our best to put you in or near that area but we cannot guarantee you’ll get a specific table you requested.

3. We have 19 tables available. Once they are full up, we will close taking applications and take the form off the website. If we receive your application after the tables are filled, you will be put on a waiting list in case of a cancellation in the order we received them.

4. Please do not submit payment for the table with your application. We prefer to receive payment after e-mail confirmations have been sent out to the Artists/Studios who we have confirmed. Mailing your payment with your application will not increase your chances of getting a table.

5. If you preregister for the convention, but are unable to get a table in our Artist Alley, we have no problem refunding preregistration as long as you put in the request by April 6, 2012 when preregistration for the 2012 convention closes. You can e-mail sales@nobrandcon.org by that date requesting a refund of your registration if you do not plan on attending the convention.

We will mail out Vendor packets to our Grandfather Vendors the weekend of October 1st and Grandfather Vendors will be able to begin reserving tables once they’ve received it via e-mail. This is ONLY for past vendors of No Brand Con who receive a vendor packet. If we have any tables available after Grandfather Vendor registration closes, we will open up what remaining tables we have to any new vendors.

If you have any questions about the Artists Alley, please e-mail our art head at art@nobrandcon.org or if you have any questions about our Vendor Room, you can e-mail our vendor head at vendors@nobrandcon.org. Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for convention updates.

Getting ready for STEAK VI!

We had a lot of fun at the Eau Claire Comics Hobby Expo this past weekend! For a first year event of it’s kind in the area, they had a very strong turnout! We definitely look forward to returning next year!

Next up on the No Brand calendar of events is STEAK VI! What the heck is STEAK you’re possibly wondering? STEAK was started up back in 2006 as a Fall table gaming event run by the UWEC Gamer’s Guild and No Brand Con Table Gaming committee as a kind of bridge event between each No Brand Con that happens in the Spring. Since then, STEAK has expanded from a two-day table gaming event to a three-day gaming event that includes table gaming, a video game room, and viewing theater for anime! The best part of STEAK is that it’s completely free to attend!

STEAK VI will be taking place in two and a half weeks during the weekend of October 7-9 in the UWEC Davies Center Skylight Lounge. The Skylight Lounge is located directly above the UWEC bookstore. There will be a handful of video game and table gaming tournaments run over the course of the weekend. We also do a food drive for the Eau Claire area Feed My People food bank. Anyone who brings in a non-perishable item will receive a free STEAK event button which we only give away during the weekend of STEAK! If you’d like more information about STEAK VI, feel free to check out the STEAK facebook page or ask a question on our STEAK forum. We’ll be posting updates as far as what tournaments will be run during the weekend as we get closer to the event. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates on STEAK as well as other con related announcements.

We hope to see you there!

Road to No Brand Con 2012 – Stop #4: Eau Claire Comics Hobby Expo

A big thanks to everyone who stopped by our table and room parties at Geek.Kon this past weekend! A lot of fun was had by all and it was definitely the best Geek.Kon to date! Major kudos to their staff for putting on such a stellar convention!

Looking ahead to our next stop, usually when our staff has to travel to other events, it’s at least a couple of hours drive for us. At least our next event is only going to require us to drive across town! Several of our staffers will be heading to the Eau Claire Comics Hobby Expo this Saturday, September 17 at The Metropolis Resort in Eau Claire, WI. The Expo will more specifically be taking place in the Metro Room at Action City and will run from 10AM to 5PM that day. We’ll have a table there where you’ll be able to take advantage of our special at-con early-bird registration rate of just $20! This will be the last time we’ll be offering our cheapest registration rate for No Brand Con XI next May before our online registration rate moves up to $30 after October 1, 2011.

The Expo itself looks like it will have a lot of interesting vendors and guests from various industries and it’s only $4 to get in! And for any anime fans who might worry there won’t be much for them to check out, don’t worry as Eagle Anime from the twin cities will be a vendor there covering all your anime goody needs!

Also, be sure to stick around Action City after the Expo closes at 5PM because a couple of our staffers will be taking on Action City’s Gorilla Pizza Challenge! Will two of them be able to scarf down a 30 inch pizza in under an hour to defend the honor of No Brand Con? You’ll have to stick around to find out!

Hope to see you there!

We’re off to Geek.Kon!

We’ll be heading out to Geek.Kon today at the Madison Marriott West in Middleton, WI. We’ll have a table setup in their Ambassador area where you can pick up some No Brand swag and take advantage of our $20 at-con preregistration special we’ll be running this weekend! We’ll also be running a free raffle where any Geek.Kon attendees can enter for a chance to win one of our awesome No Brand Hero hooded zip-up sweatshirts!

We’ll also be running room parties from 9PM to 2AM on Friday and Saturday night where you’ll be able to play some awesome table and video games including Typing of the Dead! We’ll also be having a Star Fox 64 3D meet-up during our room parties so be sure to bring you 3DS if you have one! We’ll post an update on our Facebook and Twitter accounts when we know our room number, so be sure to stop by if you’ll be at Geek.Kon this weekend!

Hope to see everyone there!

No Brand Con Annual Staff Recruitment Meeting

Have you volunteered at past conventions and ever thought about joining a convention staff? Do you have a lot of good ideas and on how you think the convention could be even better and want to share those with others? Interested in getting to meet new people who share a lot of the same passions for anime, video games, and other similar hobbies?

Well, here’s your chance to do so and get more information about No Brand Con!

The No Brand Con staff will be holding it’s annual staff recruitment meeting this Thursday, September 8 @ 7:00PM in Room 276 of the Phillips Science Hall located on UWEC’s lower campus next to the Davies Center. It’s an open meeting where you’ll be able to ask questions about joining convention staff, what’s involved, what you can do to help, etc. You don’t have to be a UWEC student to join our convention staff either.

If you need help finding how to get to the Phillips Science Hall, you can check out the Hall’s page on the UWEC website or send an e-mail to development@nobrandcon.org and we will be more than happy to provide directions and/or answer any questions you have!

Hope to see you there!